My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 11/5/00 - The Princess Charlotte, Leicester

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This was our THIRD time supporting Half Man Half Biscuit, having played with them again in Derby a couple of weeks beforehand. That gig hadn't been particularly auspicious, as the few HMHB fans who'd stayed more than five minutes had not so much WATCHED as LOOKED, declining any offers to clap in case it encouraged us to go on any longer.

This had been Ollie's final gig which, if not exactly a triumphant ending, was at least consistent with most of the other gigs he'd played with us. Still, it did give him one final chance to sit AGOG at the feet of Tim, listening to his stories of Jamming With Thurston Moore. Having finished his work placement with us Ollie continued to play in plenty of other bands, so hopefully these tales of possible career advancement made up for the, to be honest, somewhat depressing training and vocational experience which he'd received during his time with us.

As we were now down to a four piece we decided to embark upon a REVOLUTIONARY SCHEME. We called it "practicing". It may sound KRAZY but I am resolute that, if done at reasonable intervals, actually PRACTICING your songs before playing them in front of people can be harmless and, indeed, occasionally beneficial. I think that the PRACTICE of practicing gets a bad name because of the sort of bands who DO it all the time - you know the type, EITHER the sort of band who uses "tight" as a recommendation in their press release and learn their PATTER off by heart OR those STERNLY BESPECTACLED post-rock bands who play once a year but practice EVERY WEEK and CRY when they TIMBRE of the venue PA is insufficiently CRISP. They are the Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty of PRACTICE, giving it a BUM RAP for us recreational users.

During these practices (PLURAL! Yes, we practiced twice, but we can handle it, we could stop practicing any time we want to. And frequently do) we came up with a GRATE idea to get SOME kind of response from the HMHB fans - a cover version! There was some debate about where to place this in the set - if we did it at the start and they HATED it we might get BOTTLED OFF before we'd got past our first song, but if we did it at the end and they LOVED it then we'd have played the rest of the set in silence for nothing. As a compromise we played our version of "Quality Janitor" (from the GRATEST of Half Man Half Biscuit album's MANY excellent albums, "This Leaden Pall" - if you've not got it, DO) halfway through the set, and were pleased to find the SILENCE broken by some people saying "Oh!" There was even some APPLAUSE at the end - SUCCESS!

We did have ONE person there specifically to see us - MAGNUS, our Weird Fan. He was the only person who ever asked ME if he could buy one of my cassettes, rather than me having to FOIST it on him, and he came to several of our gigs. He was quite young and looked like an immaculately trousered version of a young Douglas Hurd. Every time I saw him he'd be on his own - "No friends with you tonight Magnus?" I'd ask, and he say they were all busy. A few gigs later I would discover THE TRUTH.

We got our BEERS in and settled down for Half Man Half Biscuit who, as ever, were BRILLIANT. After a RIOTOUS set, where it felt like the whole ROOM was jumping up and down, I went over to Andy, the owner of The Charlotte. He'd promised to pay us if enough people turned up and as the room had been RAMMED I was expecting a bit of cash. "Sorry lads", he said, "We didn't get enough people in." I was STUNNED. "But... but it was PACKED with people!" "Yes," he replied, "That's because they were all really fat."

You can't argue with logic like that can you? Impressed with his tactics I gracefully withdrew.

Later on Tim and I were stood outside doing our traditional post gig post mortem when Mr Nigel Blackwell, lead singer and general HERO, emerged. "Hello lads!" he said, and we GAWPED. At the last gig I'd given him a copy of our album and was AMAZED to find he'd not only listened to it, but had COMMENTS. "Stop Look And Listen", he said, was his favourite, and I GRINNED with GLEE. The conversation moved on to lower league football grounds (he'd visited Peterborough United's ground many times with Tranmere) but by then it had all gone a bit blurry for me, and when we parted it was all I could do not to SKIP home, such was my JOY - We didn't get paid, nobody liked us and the beer had been horrible, but Nigel from Half Man Half Biscuit had listened to one of our songs... and LIKED it!

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